Italian Studies | |
---|---|
Directed by | Adam Leon |
Written by | Adam Leon |
Produced by |
|
Starring |
|
Cinematography | Brett Jutkiewicz |
Edited by |
|
Music by | Nicholas Britell |
Production companies |
|
Distributed by | Magnolia Pictures |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 81 minutes [1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $5,895 [2] [3] |
Italian Studies is a 2021 American drama film, written and directed by Adam Leon. It stars Vanessa Kirby, David Ajala, Simon Brickner, Annika Wahlsten, Annabel Hoffman, and Maya Hawke.
A writer loses her memory in New York City, and attempting to find her way home, she connects with a group of strangers in conversations, real and imagined.
It had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 12, 2021. It was released on January 14, 2022, by Magnolia Pictures in theaters and VOD.
Opening on the protagonist going with her partner to a party with young people in NYC, the scene then cuts to daytime. She bums a cigarette from a young girl who recognizes her but she can't recall knowing her.
One ordinary day, the protagonist goes into a hardware store, leaving her dog tied up outside. She steps out, and suddenly she's disoriented and has forgotten everything. She then wanders through the city aimlessly for an unclear period of time.
Finding some steps she vaguely recognises, she sits, recalling having spoken to some young people there. As this character walks the streets with her seemingly endless stride, her memory seems to fail her. She remembers snippets of conversations. At a diner she meets one, and we observe that she's not even sure of her diet even but believes she may be a vegetarian.
As she's talking with the diner teen, she confesses that she can't even answer basic questions about herself. She argues in a corner shop with the attendant as she has no money to pay. In another, she takes a few things and bolts.
Going to a small hotel, she tells the receptionist she misplaced her key for room 234 but, as she can't even provide a name he can't give it to her. Outside, she finds somewhere desserted to pee and sleeps in a stairwell.
A woman approaches her, asking if she's the author Alina Reynolds, author of Italian Studies. She saw her do a reading from the book two years ago, and describes it as an anthology of coming-of age stories. With this information, she is able to find the book in the library.
Alina reads a chapter from the book, and she sees a reference to room 234. With a faint smile on her face, she borrows a pen to sign it. A man in the library tells her off for defacing the book, but apologises upon realising she is the author.
Reading the chapter Lucinda, more of Alina's memory returns. We see the interviews with the teens was with a younger version of herself, in her early 20s. The teen from the diner was Simon, who tells the story of his first love.
Various teens in the group tell Alina their perspectives and anectdotes. At a fast food restaurant, the older version of herself had mentioned she is writing a novel based on ideas she gets from them, so they hand her the check. Explaining she hasn't got any money, the teens pool together their dollars after exchanging incredulous looks.
Going to a party with more youth, Alina doesn't connect with them like she had. Receiving open hostility, she finds herself swearing and defensive. Alone with Simon, she says they are both broken. She kisses him and he leaves.
Cutting to a beach, Alina catches up to Lucinda. As they talk, she suddenly remember she lost her little white dog. She hurries back the city, returns to the hardware store and recovers it.
In the present day, the girl who had offered Alina a cigarette encourages her to look up Simon, who is a college student. She thinks it's a bad idea as she prefers to preserve the memory, implying it would needlessly stir things. Now married, Alina alludes to some mental difficulties she had passed through, which she believes her husband fears may return.
Alina heads home with her husband, and we are shown the images of the main interviewees she had interviewed.
In March 2019, it was announced Vanessa Kirby had joined the cast of the film, with Adam Leon directing from a screenplay he wrote. [4]
It had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 12, 2021. [5] In October 2021, Magnolia Pictures acquired the distribution rights to the film. The film was released in theaters on January 14, 2022. [6]
In the U.S. and Canada, the film earned $3,401 from seven theaters in its opening weekend and $579 in its second. [7] [8]
Italian Studies holds a 40% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 52 reviews, with a weighted average of 5.60/10. [9]
In a positive review, Rolling Stone called the film, "Unforgettable from the jump," features a "raw, guileless, egoless performance" from Vanessa Kirby, and that it "may be the most immersive memory loss movie of all time." [10] The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Italian Studies is a unique curio of a film, a free sketch of time and place melting into a singular subjective experience that asks, “Does memory matter?” [11] In a mixed review, Variety wrote that "Adam Leon’s minor-key, jaggedly structured indie isn't concerned with the specific whens, hows and whys of Alina’s out-of-nowhere amnesia, but with the hazy in-the-moment sensation of being struck with it, the sensation of stumbling for the lightswitch in your own mind. That's a nebulous-sounding dramatic proposition, though as performed by a nervy, live-wire Vanessa Kirby, it becomes a tensely compelling one." [12]
Dame Vanessa Redgrave is an English actress. Throughout her career spanning over six decades, she has garnered numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and an Olivier Award, making her one of the few performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. She has also received various honorary awards, including the BAFTA Fellowship Award, the Golden Lion Honorary Award, and an induction into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
Katherine Elaine Hendrix is an American actress. She is known for her roles in Dynasty,Superstar, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, the 1995 Get Smart series, the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap, Inspector Gadget 2, and the 2004 documentary film What the Bleep Do We Know!?
Carla Gugino is an American actress. After early roles in the films Troop Beverly Hills (1989), This Boy's Life (1993), Son in Law (1993), and Snake Eyes (1998), Gugino received wider recognition for her starring roles in the Spy Kids trilogy (2001–2003), Sin City (2005), Night at the Museum (2006), American Gangster (2007), Righteous Kill (2008), Race to Witch Mountain (2009), Sally Jupiter in Watchmen (2009), Sucker Punch (2011), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), San Andreas (2015), Gerald's Game (2017), Gunpowder Milkshake (2021), and Lisa Frankenstein (2024).
Alina, regina di Golconda is an opera in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The Italian libretto was written by Felice Romani after Michel-Jean Sedaine's French libretto for Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny's ballet-heroique Aline, reine de Golconde, in its turn based on the novel by Stanislas de Boufflers.
Freaky Friday is a 1976 American fantasy-comedy film directed by Gary Nelson, with the screenplay written by Mary Rodgers based on her 1972 novel of the same name. The film stars Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster in the lead roles. John Astin, Patsy Kelly and Dick Van Patten are featured in supporting roles. In the film, a mother and her daughter switch their bodies, and they get a taste of each other's lives. The cause of the switch is left unexplained in this film, but occurs on Friday the 13th, when Ellen and Annabel, in different places, say about each other at the same time, "I wish I could switch places with her for just one day." Rodgers added a water skiing subplot to her screenplay.
Annabel Brooks is a British actress who has appeared in films and on television since the 1980s. She was educated at Badminton School and Columbia University, before leaving to pursue acting.
Restless is a 2011 American romantic drama film directed by Gus Van Sant, written by Jason Lew, and produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and his daughter Bryce Dallas Howard. The film stars Henry Hopper and Mia Wasikowska, with Ryō Kase, Schuyler Fisk, and Jane Adams playing supporting roles. The film was shot in Portland, Oregon.
Zoey Francis Chaya Thompson Deutch is an American actress and producer. The younger daughter of director Howard Deutch and actress-director Lea Thompson, Deutch made her acting debut in television during the early 2010s, with roles on Disney Channel's The Suite Life on Deck (2010–2011) and CW's Ringer (2011–2012).
Vanessa Nuala Kirby is an English actress. She made her professional acting debut on stage, with acclaimed performances in the plays All My Sons (2010), A Midsummer Night's Dream (2010), Women Beware Women (2011), Three Sisters (2012), and as Stella Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (2014).
Queen of Glory is a 2021 American comedy-drama film written and directed by and starring Nana Mensah, in her directorial debut. Set in the Bronx, New York City, it depicts a Ghanaian-American scientist who inherits a Christian bookstore from her deceased mother.
Maya Ray Thurman Hawke is an American actress and singer-songwriter. She is the daughter of Hollywood actors Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. She began her career in modelling, and subsequently made her screen debut as Jo March in the 2017 BBC adaptation of Little Women.
Kill Command is a 2016 British science fiction action horror film written and directed by Steven Gomez, and starring Thure Lindhardt and Vanessa Kirby. The story focuses on a group of U.S. Marines attempting to survive after a training mission against warfare A.I. goes wrong.
Nikyatu Jusu is an American independent writer, director, producer, editor and assistant professor in film and video at George Mason University. Jusu's works center on the complexities of Black female characters and in particular, displaced, immigrant women in the United States. Her work includes African Booty Scratcher (2007), Flowers (2015), Suicide By Sunlight (2019), and Nanny, which received the Grand Jury Prize at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. She has endorsed the use of Generative artificial intelligence in filmmaking and uses the technology in her work.
Buffaloed is a 2019 American crime comedy drama film directed by Tanya Wexler and written by Brian Sacca. It stars Zoey Deutch as a paroled convict who, in an effort to escape her hometown of Buffalo, New York, cons and hustles for money and becomes a debt collector, while battling debt herself. Judy Greer, Jermaine Fowler, Noah Reid, and Jai Courtney also appear in supporting roles.
The World to Come is a 2020 American drama film directed by Mona Fastvold, from a screenplay by Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard, based upon Shepard's story of the same name. It stars Katherine Waterston, Vanessa Kirby, Christopher Abbott and Casey Affleck, and follows two neighboring couples battling hardship and isolation in mid-19th century America.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is an upcoming American action spy film directed by Christopher McQuarrie from a screenplay he co-wrote with Erik Jendresen. The direct sequel to Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), it is the eighth installment in the Mission: Impossible film series. Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Angela Bassett, and Rolf Saxon reprise their roles from the previous films.
Pieces of a Woman is a 2020 drama film directed by Kornél Mundruczó, from a screenplay by Kata Wéber. The film stars Vanessa Kirby, Shia LaBeouf, Molly Parker, Sarah Snook, Iliza Shlesinger, Benny Safdie, Jimmie Fails, and Ellen Burstyn as the family and associates of Martha (Kirby) involved in her traumatic childbirth, baby loss, and a subsequent court case against the midwife, Eva (Parker), whom Martha's mother Elizabeth (Burstyn) blames for the baby's death. Martin Scorsese and Sam Levinson served as executive producers, and the film was scored by Howard Shore.
Mayday is a 2021 American action drama film, written and directed by Karen Cinorre in her feature directorial debut. The film stars Grace Van Patten, Mia Goth, Juliette Lewis, Soko and Havana Rose Liu.
Next Exit is a 2022 American science fiction comedy-drama film written and directed by Mali Elfman in her directorial debut. It stars Katie Parker, Rahul Kohli, Rose McIver, Karen Gillan, Tongayi Chirisa, and Diva Zappa. It premiered at the Tribeca Festival on June 10, 2022, and was released in the United States by Magnet Releasing on November 4, 2022.
Tango Productions, LLC, doing business as Tango Entertainment, is an American film production company founded in 2017 by Lia Buman and Tim Headington. The company is best known for producing films Little Woods (2018) The Old Man & the Gun (2018), Skate Kitchen (2019), Little Fish (2020), Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020), Resurrection (2022), and Aftersun (2022).